3 September 2021

Seven of us retired ladies went birding yesterday morning at Moraine State Park. After a flurry of warblers we found this pink fleshy thing on the ground, the size an index finger.

As we tried to identify it someone suggested a fungus called devil’s fingers. Linda uploaded a photo to iNaturalist and the answer came back right away: the devil’s dipstick.

Umm, yah. “Small devil.” We dissolved in laughter.

After we’d wiped the laughing tears from our eyes we googled for more.

Mutinus elegans, a member of the Phallaceae family, is also known as elegant stinkhorn or headless stinkhorn.

As the egg-shaped fruiting body matures it ruptures and the spongy spore-bearing stalk emerges; fully grown, it may be from 0.4 to 5.9 inches long and 0.6 to 0.8 inches thick. The stalk is hollow and strongly wrinkled overall; its shape is cylindrical below, but it gradually tapers to a narrow apex with a small opening at the tip.

— Wikipedia account: Mutinus elegans

The one we found was an old specimen. When new, the stalk stands up and the upper third is coated with a stinky greenish-brown spore-containing slime that attracts flies to bear away the spores. Here’s a newer specimen, photographed in Florida.

There are even more suggestive specimens here and here.

The devil’s what?!

p.s. At least one of the ladies in our group is not retired but she is a grandmother so I invoked my poetic license to describe us.

(top photo by Kate St. John, second photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)

7 August 2021

When wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia) blooms in August, its mop-like flowers reach as high as 8 feet tall. Wingstem often grows in clumps because it spreads by seeds and rhizomes. From a distance it looks ragged (below) but its double-looped pistils and insect pollinators (at top) are worth a closer look.

Wingstem takes its common name from the vertical ridges (wings) that run down its stem.

The flower disc resembles a pin cushion topped with brown anthers and yellow double-loop pistils. So far I have not found a floret whose anthers and pistils are protruding simultaneously, but I’ll have to look again.

The disc florets are so deep that long-tongued insects such as bees, wasps and butterflies sip the nectar.

The plant is host to the silvery checkerspot butterfly (Chlosyne nycteis), the gold moth (Basilodes pepita) and a few aphids.

Wingstem is easy to find in southwestern Pennsylvania because its leaves are bitter — deer don’t eat it. There are lots of opportunities this month to give wingstem a closer look.

(photos by Kate St. John)

5 August 2021

Fleabane has a daily exercise regimen that responds to light.

At sunset Philadelphia fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus) and daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus) close their ray petals and bow their heads. In the morning they raise their heads and open their petals, ready for insect pollination.

The process is called nyctinasty and is controlled by their circadian clocks.

Learn more about their exercise program and how to identify daisy and Philadelphia fleabane in this vintage article: The Bane of Fleas.

(photos by Kate St. John)

3 August 2021

Indian tobacco is a poisonous plant unrelated to cultivated tobacco yet it has the same name. What’s the difference?

Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata) is native to eastern North America with tiny blue flowers on a plant six inches to three feet tall. The flowers are so small you might not notice them among the plant’s rumpled leaves. The one pictured above is blooming this week in Moraine State Park.

The plant’s alternate name is “puke weed” for good reason.

This acrid poisonous annual is found in a variety of sites, often in poor soil. The American Indians were said to have smoked and chewed its leaves; hence the common name. Though once used as an emetic, the root should not be eaten, for if taken in quantity it can be fatal.

— wildlfower.org description of Lobelia inflata

Both tobaccos are poisonous but in different ways.

Indian tobacco contains multiple alkaloid compounds that are poisonous if ingested. A member of the family Campanulaceae, it is related to bellflowers, not related to real tobacco. You can be poisoned by Indian tobacco if you swallow it.

Cultivated tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) is a hybrid of two or three wild tobaccos native to the Andes Mountains of Bolivia and Argentina. It’s in Family Solanaceae and related to tomatoes, potatoes, and some very poisonous plants including Datura. You can see that the tobacco flower is quite different from the Indian tobacco flower.

Tobacco is poisonous because it contains nicotine which can hurt you in a number of ways. Did you know it be absorbed through the skin? Tobacco workers must wear gloves, long sleeve shirts, long pants and water-resistant clothing to prevent nicotine poisoning that causes nausea and vomiting and can lead to heat stroke.

In a choice between the two tobaccos I’d rather deal with the Lobelia.

(photos by Kate St. John and from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)

25 July 2021

At Jennings Prairie Richard Nugent taught me a trick for identifying sunflowers true and false.

Sunflowers are daisy-like composites with a central disc surrounded by ray petals. The disc contains many tiny flowers.

True sunflowers: In true sunflowers, genus Helianthus, the fertile parts are all in the central disc where this bee is feeding. The ray petals are showy but not flowers in their own right.

It’s easy to find true sunflowers at Jennings Prairie. Tall sunflowers (Helianthus giganteus) towered over our heads.

False sunflowers: False sunflowers have fertile rays in addition to the central disc. If you pull off a ray petal you’ll see a tiny pistil at the end where it was attached.

That’s why another name for oxeye sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides) is false sunflower.

This method is so much easier than deciphering the leaves among Helianthus species.

(photos by Kate St. John)